Perfect Understanding
by sixbynine
Summary: Words are not a neccesity in their case. Sometimes the words just make things...more complicated and harder.


Oddly this is the second Sherlock story I've started since the new series aired. However I was having much more fun writing this one compared to my other that it got done first XD

There are minor spoilers for the both seasons, the italics are quotes taken directly from the episodes.

I find it incredibly hard to get inside either Watson or Holmes minds. I have my own pre concieved ideas of them from other variations of Sherlock Holmes. and of course the versions that I want to see (that is the more sociapathic and abnormal Sherlock is the better i like it XD) however I also enjoy picking apart the episodes for instances when Holmes acts like a human being...

In any case, they are both intricate and complicated people, so i /really/ hope I've done a good job characterising them...

EDIT: last quote fixed, thanks to MixedMedia :)

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><p>'<em>Don't make people into hero's John. Hero's do not exist, and if they did I would not be one of them'<em>

It was perhaps the first thing you ever truly learned about Sherlock Holmes, he was not a nice man, he was not a good man. John supposed it should have been less of a surprise; it wasn't like people hadn't tried to warn him. Sherlock included.

But the callousness with which he regarded human life was truly staggering. No, John finally and fully realised, Sherlock was not a nice man. He was cold and cruel and distant. He was, at best, a dangerous man.

John found that didn't worry him as much as it should, it didn't scare him or upset him. Instead it bore away at him, on dark and lonely nights, when all he could think of was the lives he had seen taken, the lives he had failed to save, and on more occasions than any man should have, the lives he had taken. He wondered if it made Sherlock's life easier, easier to bear, easier get through, easier to live. Or if it just made it unbearably lonely, he supposed he could settle for lonely if it meant the pain went away.

'_That, ah— thing that you did. That you, um, you offered to do. That was, uh, good.'_

John almost laughs aloud as he remembers Sherlock stumbling over words of gratitude. They must seem so foreign to him, a person who John doubts has ever had a need to be thankful to anyone, and even if he had Sherlock could not have uttered gratitude if his life depended on it. It warms him slightly to think that he might just be slightly different, perhaps it's because saving his life was not something he had to do, and Sherlock recognises for the first time he has someone who expects nothing from him, and is learning what a friend actually is. Perhaps it's because John's made enough of an impression that Sherlock is finally learning what appropriate responses are.  
>He thinks back across conversations they had with Lestrade and Mycroft and poor naive Molly. He doubts it; Sherlock is exactly the same uncaring twat he has always been. Except sometimes when he catches the man watching him, no doubt deducing where he's slept, for how long and which particular nightmare plagued him that night, he swears he can see a glimmer of ...something...in those deep dark eyes. It looks like confusion, which is stupid, Sherlock is never confused. John shakes his head, ridiculous, Sherlock is never confused. Except, a little voice whispers unwanted, when it comes to emotions.<p>

'_I will burn you, I will burn your heart out  
>I've been reliably informed I don't have one.<em>  
><em>Ah, but we both know that's not quite true…'<em>

John never did get a satisfactory answer from Sherlock as to what that meant, he thinks it might have something to do with him, the way Sherlock refuses to talk to him about, if it were Mycroft or Lestrade or any other person Sherlock knows, he would have been told by now. Sherlock is terrible at keeping quiet when he know something no one else does.  
>The resolute silence on the matter, and outright rage at one point, indicates to John this is related to him, he wonders if it's because Sherlock actually likes having him around and is worried about Moriarty using that. Or if Sherlock is just worried that Moriarty thinks he's weak because of a <em>perceived <em>emotional attachment that isn't there. He wonders if he'll find himself pushed out of Sherlock's life bit by bit until he's just like Lestrade and poor poor hopeful Molly; left on the outside desperate to get in and totally unnoticed.

_'You jealous?_  
><em>We're not a couple<em>  
><em>Yes you are' <em>

He has to admit, even if only to himself, Irene Adler possibly, might have just had a small point.  
>She wasn't implying they were lovers, she knew better than that. But then to someone who's job is so, so involved with sex, desire and unconventional relationships, 'couple' doesn't really mean lover anymore. So John has to admit she is right, he and Sherlock are not lovers, but they <em>are<em> a couple. He likes to think he grounds Sherlock, or at least stops him from doing anything _to_life threatening; Mycroft certainly seems to think John is needed. And Sherlock, well John knows how much he needs Sherlock, and actually enjoys having him as a friend, he enjoys the odd conversations, the endless frustrations and the fact he knows little things about the man that no one else does, little things that are his and his alone.

He's not gay, he keeps telling himself that. But then he supposes Sherlock is hardly a 'man', easily mistaken as a women when he chooses (and he has chosen on a couple of occasions that were very trying for John), attractive to a self-confessed lesbian who prides herself on remaining about such petty emotions, no John doesn't feel any _real_ guilt in admitting he is attracted to Sherlock Holmes. He'd have to be an idiot not to be, the man is brilliant, exceptional and he, for all his other faults, always seems to _fix_John just when he needs it.

He just always thought he knew better than to fall for the great Sherlock Holmes. He's seen people before try and get close, to worm their way in and it never ends well. Sherlock is beyond prickly. He toys with people, they entertain him, their odd little ways and the fact they can be so easily manipulated. And then he gets bored and throws them away, sometimes quick enough no lasting damage is done, but more often than not broken and empty husks of what they used to be. John thinks he's probably lucky to have made it this far without being destroyed.

_'I meant what I said back there, I don't have friends. I've just got one'_

It was a painfully awkward moment. John was angry, upset. Upset with Sherlock for his stupid temper and thoughtless words. Upset with himself for expecting any better. John didn't know how to deal with this. This was not a Sherlock he had seen before; this was Sherlock baring part of himself. So he had walked away, and Sherlock had panicked and followed, and John knew he was a lost cause then. Because his stomach settled itself, his heart stopped its angry patter and the furious muddled thoughts that had been frantically chasing each other around his head stopped. All because Sherlock had followed _him_, had been worried that John might leave _him_, because it seemed against all evidence to the contrary, Sherlock did have a heart, and he did know how to use it.

So John didn't mind when Sherlock drugged him and had him running circles around a lab, he didn't mind when the pub landlord smiling knowingly at them when they climbed into their car to leave. It didn't even bother him when a pretty lady on the train home had whispered in what he was sure she thought was a quiet voice to her friend how adorable it was to see the lanky Sherlock twisted to one side, his curly hair tickling at John's nose as he pretended to sleep so he could better observe the other passengers.  
>And when they finally got home, and John finally collapsed exhausted into bed, he really didn't mind that Sherlock climbed in beside him, stating his room was too far, to cold, to messy, to <em>notjohn. <em>Sherlock may love to point out idiocy's in others, and facts oh so obvious to himself. But he hated having his own ignorance noticed, and having to have things pointed out to him. So John would let him grapple with this until he understood it himself. At the moment Sherlock was experimenting, not with him, not with his feelings, but with what it all meant. He was working out what it meant to have a friend, a companion. He was pushing his own boundaries and in his own way working out what exactly John Watson was to him.  
>John already knew the answer, he had for a while, but it had taken him time, and it would take Sherlock even longer to accept that they were without a doubt a duo, a pair, a partnership, a <em>couple.<em>

So when Sherlock inches closer, John slips an arm around his shoulders, and draws him in, gently batting away a hand that shakily tries to trail its way down his chest. He draws it up and grasps it just below his chin, pressing a small and gentle kiss on the tip of one thumb. Sherlock relaxes, and John smiles at how easy Sherlock can be to read. Later they will talk, and John will explain that not all relationships are defined by sex, and Sherlock will huff and insist that he knows that, and he's fine with that thank you very much and John will look at him, with a look he saves just for 'Sherlock being Sherlock' times.

Or maybe they won't, John thinks as he feels Sherlock trace the words 'thank-you' across his chest with his other hand, maybe words just clutter an already perfect understanding.

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><p>The last quote might be wrong..i couldn't recall it exactly and couldnt find anywhere on the net that had it written down. Anyone who knows the exact words used lemme know and i'll change it :)<p> 


End file.
